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Editorials
Thursday, December 14, 2000Dismissal of
frivolous challenge
to OHA voteThe issue: The state Supreme Court has dismissed a challenge to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs election.
WITH the state Supreme Court's dismissal of a frivolous challenge to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs election, the new OHA board can get down to work. It's time OHA put the tumult of the past year behind it.
Kaui Jochanan Amsterdam, an unsuccessful candidate for the board, claimed that the election results did not reflect the will of the Hawaiian people because non-Hawaiians voted. Amsterdam argued that there should be a recount that included only the votes of Hawaiians.
Such a recount would be impossible because there is no way to distinguish the Hawaiian votes from those of non-Hawaiians. Moreover, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Rice vs. Cayetano case that non-Hawaiians could not be excluded from voting in OHA elections.
Although Amsterdam's appeal was baseless, it held up the swearing-in of the newly elected board, which was to have been conducted on Nov. 27.
A spokesman for the state elections office said the office will certify the OHA election when it verifies that all of the trustees have filed their final campaign disclosure reports with the state Campaign Spending Commission. The board expects to hold an organization meeting next week.
OHA has been in flux since the Rice decision was handed down last February. Governor Cayetano announced that he intended to appoint new trustees but the board refused to resign.
The governor and the trustees agreed to submit the issue to the state Supreme Court but months passed before the court ruled. The incumbents eventually resigned just weeks before the election, giving the governor's appointed board only a short time in office. Most of the trustees surfaced again as candidates.
The new board is a mixture of old and new faces. Whether they will work together better than previous boards, which were often plagued with conflict, is as yet unknown.
However, the election of Oswald Stender, a hero of the battle to reform the Bishop Estate, was an encouraging sign. Stender has had extensive experience in estate management that should be valuable in OHA's deliberations, as well as demonstrated courage and integrity.
The Rice decision has had an obvious effect on OHA by broadening voter eligibility. Allowing non-Hawaiian candidates was a logical extension of Rice, and the voters chose the board's first non-Hawaiian, Charles Ota of Maui.
Now that the adjustment to the Rice decision has been made, the new OHA board has a responsibility to the voters -- non-Hawaiian as well as Hawaiian -- to make the agency a more effective organ for advancement of Hawaiian welfare. That should mean, for one thing, an end to the back-biting that so often marred OHA's deliberations over the years.
Taiwan opens islands
UEMOY and Matsu are two small islands just off the Chinese coast that were bombarded by Chinese Communist artillery in 1958. The shelling prompted a redeployment of the U.S. 7th Fleet to protect the Nationalist stronghold of Taiwan against invasion.
Now Quemoy and Matsu, still heavily fortified against attack from the mainland, are back in the news. The Taiwan government announced it would ease a ban on Chinese travel to and trade with the islands. The decision was made unilaterally and it was not clear whether the Beijing regime would cooperate.
The Taiwan cabinet approved regulations allowing residents of Quemoy and Matsu to sail to Xiamen and Fuzhou, cities in the nearby province of Fujian. The regulations also allow as many as 700 Chinese to visit Quemoy and Matsu at one time, for stays of a maximum of seven days.
Only Taiwan vessels can be used to ferry passengers and goods between the islands and Fujian. Chinese ships remain barred from docking at Quemoy and Matsu.
An official of the Mainland Affairs Council said the regulations would "make things convenient for residents while at the same time taking national security into consideration."
Relations between Beijing and Taiwan have been become more strained since the election of President Chen Shui-bian last March, ending decades of Nationalist rule on Taiwan.
Chen formerly advocated independence for Taiwan but has softened his position. However, Beijing remains suspicious and has demanded that he embrace its "one China" principle before it agrees to cooperate on other matters. In particular, China has refused to enter into talks on a Taiwan proposal to ease a decades-old ban on trade, transport and postal links.
Chen has resisted the "one China" principle, fearing it would commit democratic Taiwan to reunification with its giant Communist neighbor.
Critics of the Quemoy-Matsu decision said it would merely decriminalize smuggling that has been rampant in the Taiwan Strait in recent years.
IF the aim is to induce Beijing to change its position on "one China," it seems unlikely to succeed, at least in the short run. Nevertheless, by permiting more trade and personal contact between Taiwan and the mainland -- millions of Taiwanese have been allowed to visit the mainland and Taiwan businesses have invested billions of dollars there in recent years -- the Taipei regime is bringing Taiwan and China closer in unofficial but highly meaningful ways.
The fact that Chinese will be allowed to visit Quemoy and Matsu, once viewed as stepping stones for an invasion of Taiwan, could help build confidence in a peaceful resolution of the Taiwan issue.
Published by Liberty Newspapers Limited PartnershipRupert E. Phillips, CEO
John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher
David Shapiro, Managing Editor
Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor
Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors
A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor
